(Editor's note: This is the first of back-to-back stories on the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Tomorrow, OutdoorsFan Media staffer and Houston-area resident Jason Bryant will detail his own hurricane experience.)

Zell Rowland is putting in some long hours for his new primary sponsor this offseason. The work is rewarding, but not a lot of fun.



The veteran from Texas is working for his brother, Tippton, the owner of TFR Enterprises. Disaster management is one of the services the company provides, and it's heavily engaged in cleanup work in the wake of devastating Hurricane Ike.

He receives no salary, but his brother has agreed to sponsor him next year in exchange for his help with the Ike cleanup and with the development of a planned RV park. In addition to entry fees, the deal will provide for a 40-foot touring bus that he'll drive to some of the '09 events.

"Tip called me a little over a month ago after Hurricane Dolly," he said, "and he asked me to come down and run some crews. He said, 'Trust me, it ain't that hard.' But as you might imagine, it's gotten a lot harder than fishing tournaments."

Start Early, Quit Late

Rowland is up at 5 a.m. each day and doesn't get home before dinnertime, and he's put more than 3,000 miles on his truck over the past 2 weeks. He was among the first people onto Galveston Island after Ike had rolled through and got an up-close look at the colossal damage wrought by the storm.

"It's horrible," he said. "The tidal surge in Galveston Bay got up to 13 feet, and from what I've seen, that caused more damage than the wind.

"And there's rattlesnakes everywhere – we killed a 7-footer the other day. Every pile of debris is just loaded with snakes and other animals."

TFR is one of the companies recruited by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to aid in the initial cleanup effort.

"Everybody from fishermen to lawmakers has problems with the Corps of Engineers, but the issue the Corps is having is there's all this debris like air conditioners, refrigerators, gas cans and 50-gallon drums out there in the bay, and it'll have a huge environmental impact if they don't get it out as quick as they can."

The company has 13 trucks making as many as seven runs a day, taking debris from Galveston to one disposal site or another. He supervises some of the crews that are loading the trucks.

"It's interesting work, and it's nice knowing that you're able to help people do things that'll be beneficial for them. I'll probably be doing this until the season starts (in March), and I'm sure Tip will be busy on this stuff for at least another year."

His own home in Montgomery, which is 55 miles from Galveston, somehow escaped Ike's wrath. Many of his neighbors weren't so fortunate.

"About every house on my street had a tree on it except mine," he said. "We were lucky because we've got two pine trees in our back yard that are 100 feet high and another one that's 80 feet.

"Some of the houses in my subdivision look like they had a bomb dropped on them."

Less Financial Strain

The 51-year-old Rowland, a 16-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier, doesn't have an automatic berth for next year's Elite Series. He finished 90th in this year's Angler of the Year (AOY) race, and only the Top 84 are guaranteed slots for '09.

He used his one-time exemption as a 10-time Classic qualifier to fish this year, so that's not an option for the upcoming campaign. But it's pretty much a cinch that he'll be invited back because some qualifiers from the Bassmaster Opens, unable to come up with $55,000 in entry fees and another hefty sum in travel expenses, will decline to fish the Elite Series. Also, some re-qualifiers from this year will likely opt out for the same reason.

He'll be in a better financial position next year than he has in quite some time.

"Fishing has gotten so expensive and in this economy it's so hard to find sponsors, and my brother has offered to take some of that so that I don't have a payment," he said. "Up until now, I've been trying to fish on sponsor income that I made 6 years ago – that's one of the growing pains of the $5,000 (per tournament) entry fee.

"The way professional fishing is right now, there are a lot more guys not making it than making it (financially). Yeah, it's been that way for a long time, but the losses today are a lot harder to absorb compared to what they were 20 years ago. BASS is trying very hard to find a way to get around that pumpkin, but they're not there yet."

Despite back-to-back subpar years (he was 96th in the '07 points), he hasn't lost confidence in his abilities and he has no notion to quit anytime soon.

"I don't plan on retiring. Fishing is the love of my life and I've never done anything else."

Notable

> Rowland said he'd greatly miss the camaraderie among the anglers if he were to quit fishing professionally. "We all get along like a family, and that's something you don't see in other sports. I've had 2 years in a row that have not been good, but it's still been a pleasure to be around all the people."

> One of the changes he'd like to see on the Elite Series is a restructuring of the payout schedule. "Instead of $100,000, I'd much prefer to see the winner get $75,000, and then have more guys be able to go home and hand their wives a check. More guys would have something to show for their work for that week, and the wives would ask them when they're going again."